LONDON: A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Russia triggered an earthquake-sized blast at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of a nearby town, war bloggers and some media reported.

Thirteen people have been injured in Russia’s Tver region after a large Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire there, according to the country’s health ministry, the BBC reported.

Unverified video and images on social media showed a huge ball of flame blasting high into the night sky and multiple detonations thundering across a lake about 380 km west of Moscow. Nasa satellites picked up intense heat sources emanating from an area of about 14 square kilometres at the site in the early hours and earthquake monitoring stations picked up what sensors thought was a small earthquake in the area.

“The enemy hit an ammunition depot in the area of Toropets,” said Yuri Podolyaka, an Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. “Everything that can burn is already burning there (and exploding).”

The strike leaves 13 people injured

Russian state media have in the past reported that a major arsenal for conventional weapons was located at the site of the blasts. State media, which is now subject to military censorship laws, was muted in its reporting on Wednesday.

Igor Rudenya, the governor of the Tver region, said that Ukrainian drones had been shot down, that a fire had broken out and that some residents were being evacuated. One woman said that members of her family had been evacuated from Toropets. “A fire started with explosions,” the woman said, giving only a first name, Irina.

A source in Ukraine’s SBU state security service said the drone attack destroyed a warehouse storing missiles, guided bombs and artillery ammunition. Russia and Ukraine each reported dozens of enemy drone attacks on their territory overnight, with Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine.

This latest attack by Ukraine is the kind it has been wanting to carry out with missiles supplied by its western allies. However, in the absence of approval from the US and UK, it has once again hit Russian targets with drones it has made itself.

Russia reported that its air defence units had destroyed 54 drones launched against five Russian regions overnight, without mentioning Tver. Ukraine said it had shot down 46 of 52 drones launched by Moscow overnight and that Russia had used three guided air missiles which did not reach their targets.

Major explosion

The size of the main blast shown in the unverified social media video was consistent with 200-240 tons of high explosives detonating, according to George William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California. A Toropets chatroom on the Russian social media site VK was flooded with messages of support from other parts of the country and offers of help to people fleeing the town.

Some people were asking whether buildings at specific addresses were still standing. “People, does anyone know what’s happened to Kudino village??? They told me nothing is left of our house,” posted one woman.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2024